The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

-Elie Wiesel

I am super busy working on my upcoming Principle Gallery show this morning but thought that I’d share a post that I like to replay every few years. It meshes well with yesterday’s post about how each of us deserve to have our voice heard and our existence acknowledged.

I’ve been sitting here for quite some time now, staring at the quote above from Elie Wiesel, the late Nobel Laureate and peace activist. I had planned on writing about how my work evolved as a response to the indifference of others but now, looking at those words and putting them into the context of Wiesel’s experience, I feel a bit foolish. Wiesel, who had survived the Holocaust and crusaded so that it might never happen again, was eyewitness to indifference on a grand scale, from those who were complicit or those who did not raise their voices in protest even though they knew what was happening to the personal indifference shown by his Nazi guards, as they turned a blind eye to the suffering and inhumanity directly before them on a daily basis, treating their innocent captives as though they were subhuman, nothing at all in their eyes.

The indifference of which he speaks is that which looks past you without any regard for your humanity. Or your mere existence, for that matter. It is this failure to engage, this failure to allow our empathy to take hold and guide us, that grants permission for the great suffering that takes place throughout our world.

So you can see where writing about showing a picture as a symbolic battle against indifference might seem a bit trivial. It certainly does to me. But I do see in it a microcosm of the wider implications. We all want our humanity, our existence, recognized and for me this was a small way of raising my voice to be heard.

When I first started showing my work I was coming off of a period where I was at my lowest point for quite some time. I felt absolutely voiceless and barely visible in the world, dispossessed in many ways. In art I found a way to finally express an inner voice, my real humanity, that others could see and feel a reaction. So when my first opportunity to display my work came, at the West End Gallery in 1995, I went to the show with great trepidation.

For some, it was just a show of some nice paintings by some nice folks. For me, it was a test of my existence.

It was interesting as I stood off to the side, watching as people walked about the space. It was elating when someone stopped and looked at my small pieces. But that feeling of momentary glee was overwhelmed by the indifference shown by those who walked by with barely a glance, if that. It was as though my work wasn’t even there.

Those moments crushed me. I would have rather they had stopped and spit at my work on the wall than merely walk by dismissively. That, at least, would have made me feel heard.

Don’t get me wrong here. Some people walking by a painting that doesn’t move them with barely a glance are not Nazis nor are they bad folks in any way. I held no ill will toward them, even at that moment. I knew that I was the one who had placed so much importance on this moment, not them. They had no idea that they were playing part to an existential crisis. Now, I am even a bit grateful for their indifference that night because it made me vow that I would paint bolder, that I would make my voice be heard. Without that indifference I might have settled and not continued forward on my path.

But in this case, I knew that it was up to me to overcome their indifference.

Again, please excuse my use of Mr. Wiesel’s quote here. My little anecdote has little to do with the experience of those who suffered at the hands of evil people who were enabled by the indifference of those who might have stopped them. The point is that we all want to be heard, to be recognized on the most basic level for our own existence, our own individual selves. But too often, we all show indifference that takes that away from others, including those that we love. We all need to listen and hear, to look and see, to express our empathy with those we encounter.

We need to care.

Maybe in that small ways the greater effects of indifference of which Elie Wiesel spoke can be somehow avoided.

We can hope.

The painting at the top is a new piece [at the time this was first written] that I call Memory of Night, inspired by Wiesel’s memorable book documenting his Holocaust experience, Night.

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There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher. What we can’t understand we call nonsense. What we can’t read we call gibberish.

–Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

I tend to agree with the snippet above from author Chuck Palahniuk’s novel.

Everything is built upon pattern. Who we are and how we behave. History. Science. Music and art. It is all dictated by patterns.

Most of us don’t dwell too long on identifying patterns in the world around us and some of us will even refuse to acknowledge the predominance of pattern in the world, believing everything is random and chaotic. I suppose that in itself is part of a pattern, a larger one that is so encompassing that we can’t see it from our vantage point within it.

Just speculating there, of course.

I know that I am always looking for pattern, even when I’m not really looking. I call it pattern, rhythm, flow, sense of rightness and other terms, without knowing why I am drawn to this concept. It just attracts me in that it is so much part of everything that there must surely be significance.

This search for pattern often shows up in my work, especially in those with unusual dimensions like the painting shown on the left, titled Up and Up. The width of its picture plane is very restrictive, forcing all the elements within it to be condensed so that it maintains a semblance of coherence for the viewer. For these paintings, it results in patterns all their own. Patterns that often hold the visual appeal of the whole painting.

For example, Up and Up has a pattern that reminds me of ladder rungs, with each new layer in the landscape lifting you higher. I see it both as a landscape and as a pattern, a sort of DNA-like structure or armature on which this world is built.

Whatever it is, it holds my eye and makes me keep searching for something in it.

This post ran several years ago but has been adapted for the piece shown here, Up and Up, which will be part of my upcoming solo show, Between Here and There, opening June 4, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.

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I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.

-Theodore Parker, 1853 Sermon

The excerpt above from Unitarian minister Theodore Parker in the Abolitionist years before the American Civil War was the source for a popular quote from another famed minister. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. later condensed Parker’s words into a quote that has become almost an anthem in recent times–  The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Yesterday provided some small proof of this moral arc bending toward justice. I was holding my breath as the judge in the George Floyd murder case rendered the jury’s verdict. When he announced that the officer was guilty of all three counts, I felt a great sense of relief overtake my body. It was not a moment of jubilation or joy. This may ha been a pivotal moment in the way in which this country moves forward and had the verdict went the other way, we might be looking at a much different scenario today.

Feeling that justice was finally served in some way, I immediately thought of King’s words. However, it kind of nagged at me because I knew that this was not some sort of preordained result, not some sort of karmic return that was meant to occur.

No, it was the result of an outcry and vigilance. Had it not been for the courage of a seventeen year old young lady with an IPhone camera who was willing to document the atrocity she was witnessing, if not for throngs willing to take to the streets during the height of a deadly pandemic, if not for police officers who could no longer turn a blind eye to the criminal behavior of some of their brothers in blue, the moral arc might not yet be bending. 

Nothing, especially justice, is preordained. Change, including the bending of the moral arc of the universe, is the result of actions taken. Without the will and the courage to continue to attempt to bend that arc, it will never head completely toward justice.

While I love the belief of Dr. King’s words, I think I prefer Parker’s longer message where he adds that he can divine by conscience, meaning, I believe, that he knew that the will and effort to bend that arc was a critical necessity but that it was at hand.

There is much work to be done. It is not a time for celebration. Even my sense of relief should be avoided because for every action there is a reaction.

Those hate-filled folks who have a different view of where justice rests on the moral arc of the universe are not going away any time soon. They will continue to try to warp the arc toward their own vision, seeming to believe that denying rights and dignity to others somehow elevates their own. 

In fact, diminishing the rights of any one of us diminishes the rights of us all.

So, let’s stay watchful, responsive and brave, folks, okay? It’s up to us alone–you and me and all our friends– to bend that arc towards a form of justice that blindly and equally serves each and every one of us.

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